Quoted: Esquire's Brilliant Commentary on the Government Shutdown

The government shutdown has spurred an array of reactions across the media and greater public, ranging from confusion to anger to incredulity. But no one has quite captured this mood like Charles S. Pierce, who writes for our brother publication, Esquire. In a brilliant, scathing commentary, Pierce annihilates all of the finger pointing by turning the tables and reminding us that just as the government itself is to blame, so are we—according to the concept of democracy, anyway.

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While it's certainly worth reading the entire essay, we rounded up five of Pierce's more poignant points.

1. "Only the truly child-like can have expected anything else."

2. "There has never been in a single Congress—or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress—a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one..."

3. "This is what they came to Washington to do—to break the government of the United States. It doesn't matter any more whether they're doing it out of pure crackpot ideology, or at the behest of the various sugar daddies that back their campaigns, or at the instigation of their party's mouthbreathing base."

4. "Among other things, the Library Of Congress is closed as a result of what the vandals have done. Padlock study and intellect. Wander aimlessly down the mall among the shuttered monuments to self-government."

5. "We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons."